Free All for One by Ryne Douglas Pearson Page A

cars like that.”
    “I don’t know,” Joey said, and watched the window for a long time as Jeff chattered on about unmarked police cars and how they kept sawed-off shotguns under the dash. The curtain moved once more then hung still as a death shroud.
    *  *  *
    His thoughts spilled onto the screen, left to right, in letters that connected to become words, and sentences, and paragraphs. Soon it would be pages. A story.
    Bryce pecked at the keyboard, eyes flitting every few words to the handwritten draft of The Sun Beam by Bryce H. Hool. He’d used his middle initial because he thought it made him sound more writer-like. Like Arthur C. Clarke or that F. Scott Fitzsomebody that his mom liked to read, though he would not have gone with the initial up front. B. Homer Hool just sounded way too lame.
    As he copied The Sun Beam from the lined white paper on which he’d written it to the computer, he wondered if Arthur C. or F. Scott got as excited as he did when writing. Sure, this was technically just copying, but things were changing from somewhere between his eyeball, as his inky thoughts were read, and the computer screen, where they were appearing...changed. Somewhere about his fingertips the metamorphosis was taking place, his brain taking what he’d already put on paper and...doing things with it. This was writing, an intense process that was driving Commander Zaxar to do things Bryce H. Hool had never intended him to do. The brave Commander had already fired off half his laser bursts (in longhand he’d wisely kept plenty in reserve) at the Death Knight, and he still had to, somehow, get to the power generator before earth was driven out of its orbit by the tractor beam and sent on a collision course with the sun.
    But there were other obstacles besides dwindling ammunition for Commander Zaxar’s blaster, Bryce knew. He could hear those plainly behind.
    “You’re it!” Bryce’s four year old sister, Connie, said with a giggle, her spritely hand drawing back against her tummy.
    “You’re it!” Bryce’s other four year old sister, Bonnie, said right back, tapping her twin on the knee as they bounced together on the couch.
    “Mom,” Bryce said with annoyance, his head tilted toward the kitchen. “Connie and Bonnie are playing on the furniture.”
    “Are not!” Connie said.
    “Are not!” Bonnie concurred.
    Caroline Hool leaned into the archway between the kitchen and the family room and said, “If your father sees you girls doing that he’ll have a hand to butt discussion with you. And he’ll be home soon.”
    The girls quieted and their mother went back to the stove.
    “Bryce won’t let us on the computer,” Bonnie whined.
    “We want to play Turtle Squad,” Connie explained, with no less fuss in her tone. Sometimes it was like a contest, each one seeing who could whiiiiiiine more annoyingly.
    “Bryce is doing homework,” Caroline Hool said. Hamburgers sizzled in a pan as she spoke.
    “He’s making up a stupid story,” Bonnie said. She leaned over the back of the couch and made faces at her brother. Connie joined in without prompting.
    “It’s creative writing,” Caroline Hool said calmly. “Bryce is going to be a—”
    The phone ringing cut his mother off, and Bryce looked back at his sisters. His pain in the rear sisters. Their faces twisted and goofed, tongues wagging. He shook his head and said, “Grow up.”
    “Bryce.”
    “Yeah, mom?”
    “It’s for you.”
    Bryce kept typing with one finger and lifted the phone next to the computer. “Got it.” He heard the extension click off. “Hello?”
    “Bryce? It’s PJ.”
    The letters stopped spilling onto the screen. “Hi.”
    Mrs. Hool peeked in at her son, smiled, and disappeared again.
    “Hi,” PJ said back.
    “Hi.”
    “You said that.”
    Bryce swallowed hard and turned completely away from his sisters. “Why are you calling?”
    “Uh, do you have Joey Travers’ phone number?”
    “Joey Travers ? You mean